Ain't Nothing but Sinners Here
by The Sleeping Bear
Summary: They hung her momma, and they'd hang her too. Arthur thought he was going to die up on that mountain. He was beginning to wish he had. Arthur x Female OC
1. The Prologue

2

Prologue

He didn't feel right.

Arthur's life being what it was, he'd seen a lot of things. The unbelievable, the inconceivable, the undeniable horrors of despair and destitution. Ghost towns, the Night Folk, suicide, homicide, infanticide, any number of those –_ides_. It could all be explained, one way or another. Contaminated water supply, bad harvest, moldy wheat, the specific brand of crazy bred from cannibalism and incest.

But he'd died up in those mountains.

The moon had hung low and swollen. Tall pines swayed below, stretching toward the sky like a preacher's flock during a scornful sermon.

_May God have mercy on my wretched soul._

_Hallelujah, hallelujah. _

_Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. _

Arthur wasn't a religious man, but up there on that mountain he thought he could believe in something. The moon grew impossibly brighter, impossibly bigger. Shadow danced to the rustle of leaf and limb like an old pagan ritual, the wind rising, rising, rising. Wolves howled in the distance, keening to their great gold God in the sky.

His blood ran down in rivers and streams, but no wolves strayed near, whereby day they might have hungrily circled him. Everything on his little mountain top was silent, contrasting heavily with the whirlwind below. It was oppressive. Dark. Fear stole over him then, his weak heart thump-thump-thumping like a dying animal, cornered, terrified, looking frantically for escape.

His ears popped from the pressure and he struggled to breathe, wheezing desperately.

The Devil himself had come this night, he knew.

Arthur closed his eyes and died.

Or rather, he'd wished he'd died when he woke up an indeterminable amount of time later, a breeze ruffled through his hair and a tent was pitched over his broken body. Sadie Adler sat not too far away on her jacket, feeding a fire. He tried to haul himself up and nearly passed out from the pain. She'd only looked at him with that same flat expression she'd had since the day her husband died.

"Well I'll be. I'd thought for sure you'd gone and died on me when Charles dragged you down that Goddamn mountain."


	2. 1 The Sick

10

Chapter One

The Sick

"The harvest is past, the summer has ended and we are not saved." – Jeramiah 8:20.

…

_Rhodes, August 1907_

Rhodes made him uncomfortable. Not, he told himself, because of what happened here, but because it was so Goddamn hot. Circe stamped her feet in displeasure and Arthur wiped the sweat from his brow with a dirty kerchief. He found Circe wondering around West Amberino with a saddle half-off, wild-eyed and shell shocked. He wasn't sure what happened to her owner, but there was a good amount of blood on the saddle. Like most Andalusians, she was impatient and stubborn, which is exactly what he _didn't_ need in a horse, but she was clearly terrified, and he wasn't going to leave her out in the wilderness. She nosed his pockets for treats, and finding none, pawed the dirt in a huff.

Sadie was inside the sheriff's office negotiating a bounty, and no one had been shot yet so he assumed it must be going her way. Arthur himself hadn't quite managed to leave the shadow of the train station and into the town proper. He heard Hosea's voice, gentle and bitter, rise with a gust of sand blowing through the square.

"_I wish I had acquired wisdom at less of a price."_

As much as Arthur attempted to forget anything related to _that_ time and _those_ people, he speculated more and more on what could've been if they'd just avoided Blackwater altogether. Or maybe they were doomed from the start. It was hard to tell these days if Dutch was just that good of a liar or if, somewhere along the way, he became too disillusioned with the idea of himself as a savior of the last frontier. If he couldn't have paradise, they couldn't have it either.

Dutch always was a bit big for his britches. What would he think of John now, out on a ranch they built with their own hands and finally living a life worth dying for? He hoped the bastard never found out.

Charles waltzed out of the general store, carrying a book and swinging a small bag of candy. He ignored the looks Arthur was giving him and brushed past to the post-office. Arthur rolled his eyes.

"You're gonna spoil that kid senseless Charles."

"He deserves it. Not like his daddy's done him any favors."

Once, that might have been true, but these days John Marston was making a real man out of himself. At least, he was trying to. Marston may be emotionally stunted, but he was more of a daddy to Jack than either of them ever had. It was hard to admit, even now, that Dutch had done everything for himself. That lonely mountain top hurt to think about, so Arthur shoved it deep inside with the rest of his regrets and instead focused on the present.

Heat boiled in the distance, distorting the scenery into a mockery of itself. Sweltering. Suffocating. There was no room to breathe here, not in the height of a southern heatwave. Crops were dying, animals were dying. People were dying. The world itself seemed to be dying.

"Oh, quit being dramatic. I don't like being here anymore than you do, but you don't see me whining," said Sadie, swaggering over from the sheriff's office like she struck gold. Good. They needed the money.

Her hair was matted to her skin and rivulets of sweat ran down her face, but Sadie didn't seem to mind none. Circe stomped her feet with impatience.

"I ain't whining. It's hot." It was, with the sun beating down and no clouds in sight. The sun was punishing them, heathens who'd given up their rightful god for a holy book and a lotta pretty words. The heat was a minor discomfort compared to his agitation at being back in this town. He'd vowed to never cross the Kamassa River once Charles and Sadie slung his broken body over the west bank. Rhodes was as far east as he'd go, and even that felt too far.

But it was drawing him back. He knew it. The tall trees, spindly and diseased, the cold wind, the unforgiving caress of stone.

After…after**, **they'd run as silent and as swift as a fox fleeing a cougar, back up west, into the Amberino wilderness. There they stayed, huddled, freezing and planning. Even with everything going to shit so quickly, they'd still made it out with a mighty sum of money. They made a slow and cautious trek to civilization after the thaw, making quiet inquiries about a man and his family looking for honest work and no questions.

They found him, eventually, tryin' raise a house with Uncle, who was passed out somewhere in a pasture. John looked downright gob-smacked but there was indecision and want in his eyes. Arthur wasn't havin' none of it. He made it abundantly clear that if Marston even thought about returning to their old ways, Arthur'd hunt him down and drown him in a river. There weren't no more chances to get this right. John seemed to agree to that because they spent the next several months raising barns, fences, and a few small cabins for Sadie, Charles, and himself. It was agreed upon that Uncle stay in the main house, despite how much he bitched and moaned. God knows what sort of trouble he'd get into all by his lonesome.

Abigail and Jack eventually found their way to the ranch, and it didn't take long for Arthur to realize the discomfort and mistrust in her eyes. He didn't blame her. She'd been through too much, and they were a constant reminder of what _had been_ holding back _what could be_.

They came to a sort of informal agreement. The Adler Gang, or whatever it was people where callin' 'em these days, would go out and chase bounties. They'd send a share back to the ranch and in return, had a place to rest their bones. When John got too antsy, Arthur'd take him out camping and try to not shoot him for nearly fuckin' it all up.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of crops anywhere, let alone on the ranch with an incompetent rancher so they were pretty much relying on bounties to survive. The summer heat had been unforgiving, and in its scorn, there had been no rain and several wildfires. The sickness he saw in Armadillo seemed to be spreading up through the north west and down into the very earth they sowed. Poverty, hunger, and desperation spread its sickly fingers through every town in the west. Now, Arthur could see, it was reaching Rhodes.

He wasn't a doctor and recently had come to despise the profession, but he could see the state of the town for what it was. Even with the heat, they shouldn't be the only three people walkin' about town. Rhodes wasn't Saint Denise, but it wasn't no ghost town either. Sadie suggested having a drink in the saloon to cool down before moving on. Arthur agreed, but only because the heat waves rising off the red dirt had begun playing with his eyes.

Inside, the lone bartender dozed on a stool behind the bar. Sadie slammed her gun down on the counter with a wicked smile and startled him awake.

"Oh—uh, hello. What can I get y'all?"

Sadie ordered them both a whisky.

"What's goin' on in these parts?" She asked, mostly knowing the answer.

"Same as what's goin' on anywhere else, I suppose." The bartender shrugged and went on to appear busy by cleaning unused glasses. "Crops ain't growin', fires are burnin', and people are dyin'."

"Any unusual crime in the area? Maybe a group of men hangin' around that shouldn't be?"

The bartender gave a slight pause but shook his head. "Isn't there always during times like these?"

Arthur couldn't argue with that, but they were burning daylight, so he went straight to the point. "Look, I'm gonna be direct with you. We're searching for someone, runs with a real vicious group. Gotta an angry face and a scruffy beard."

"We gotta lotta men around here like that lately."

Arthur frowned and tried to hide his frustration. Sadie flashed a mean smile and leaned into the bartender real close. "You'd know him if you met him. Tends leave the bodies of young and innocent little girls in his wake."

There was a pause and the other man seemed to be thinking real hard before admitting to the truth. "They was here not too long ago. The one you talkin' about was botherin' one of them ladies. Her daddy didn't like that much, but the men, they was real rough so that girl and her daddy just left. Next day the men was gone, but they left a nasty mess. That poor girl and her whole family was killed…'mong other things."

The "other things" didn't need to be explained. They'd been following Micah and his gang long enough to know what that meant. Arthur finished his whisky.

"Know which direction the went in?"

Arthur greatly disliked Rhodes. It was too backwards, too racist, and too Goddamned hot. He wasn't overly fond of anything east of Valentine and flat out refused to cross the Kamassa. He'd had his share of superstitious rednecks and alligators.

There was a special kind of crazy bred from incest and cannibalism that seemed to fester in that part of the country. He not-so-secretly hoped they'd all just eat each other and die.

Unfortunately, he almost never got what he wanted.

The Adler Gang mounted up in silence.

He took a long look over his shoulder. Rhodes was bathed in the golden glow of a setting sun, and for a brief moment, it almost looked pretty. Arthur turned around and road forward into darkness, the fading twilight warming his back.

_Catfish Jackson's, September 1907_

He absolutely did not want to go back into that house. He remembered very vividly what happened the last time he was here and just what kind of people lived in this rotten country.

Circe didn't like it either. Anytime he tried to leave her tied to the post she nipped and tore at his already ratty clothing. She whinnied in a panic every time lightening arched overhead and lit up the surrounding area. Arthur didn't particularly want to leave her there, and would've preferred to sleep in a tent outside, but the wind from the storm didn't leave him much choice.

And then there was Charles.

He'd been wounded fleeing—something—and they needed to cauterize the wound. He wasn't much looking forward to it, but he certainly wasn't going to make Charles do it himself. Arthur tried not to spend too much time thinking about it. He hadn't seen much, but he'd heard it. Felt it. One moment they'd been plodding along, avoiding suspicious fires in the woods, and the next they'd been plunged into unnatural darkness. They wouldn't have been able to see much anyway, as deep in the woods as they were, but this was something else entirely. Something sinister.

Circe froze up under him and he felt her anxiety skyrocket. She began to nervously side-step, and he tried to reign her in. The air felt electric, and despite the fear racing down his spine he murmured comfortingly to her. His voice sounded muffled like there was cotton in his ears and he could feel the pressure build up, up, _up_.

Something moved to his left, someone screamed, and Circe threw him.

Arthur landed hard on his back. He felt roots and brush under him as he scrambled backwards until he hit a tree, jarring his spine _hard_. A gun went off, the noise loud enough to pop the pressure in his ears and the light disorienting, he moved to his feet even as he felt the world tilt on its axis.

And then it was gone.

Arthur could see Charles huddled on the ground and Sadie held a sawed-off aimed at his head, her eyes wild and white with fear.

There was a moment of realization and Sadie lowered her gun. Whatever had been with them was gone.

Before whatever the hell just happened, he'd insisted they ride straight through the woods, but with Charles bleeding how he was, they backtracked to Crawfish Jackson's. The letters he'd found on the property weighed heavily in his satchel and he prayed to whichever God was listening that Elijah smartened up and the left the whole miserable mess behind him. He must've, 'cause there weren't no screamin' or knife wavin' when they burst inside.

He had no desire to stick around the place longer than necessary, so he volunteered to look after the horses while Sadie got Charles settled.

Thunder boomed around them, a warning of the storm to come. Arthur leaned against Circe for strength and dodged her searching teeth when he finally tore away. Despite the starting drizzle, Arthur took slow steps toward the porch.

Charles was passed out on the ratty couch and he heard Sadie banging around somewhere in the back of the house. She was kind enough to start the fireplace and Arthur stuck his knife in it. He poked Charles in the shoulder for a few minutes, half to see if he would wake up and half to convince himself he knew what he was doing. There were two large puncture wounds and several scrapes, some of the skin barley hanging on to muscle. It looked like the thing tried to take a chunk right outta his shoulder. The wound was deep and bleeding profusely.

Arthur grabbed the knife and shook Charles awake.

_Crawdad Willie's, September 1907_

It was slower travel after Catfish Jacksons.

Charles had hardly recovered from the attack in the woods and they moved cautiously through southern Lemoyne. It'd been years since the failed heist in Saint Denise, but people in these parts had long memories. He wasn't sure what became of the Lemoyne Raiders but knew it was likely there still some in the area, even if a majority had been caught or disbanded.

Shady Belle would've been the ideal place to put up, but with Charles in real bad shape, he and Sadie didn't want to put in the effort to shoo away its current inhabitants. They could do it, but neither of them wanted to admit that they were avoiding the area for entirely different reasons.

Crawdad Willie's was the next best thing. He hated the swamp, but at least it wasn't haunted by the past—or at least not _their_ past. When he was younger and more reckless Arthur didn't believe in the supernatural or any kind of religion. He still wasn't sure about that last one, but he'd seen too much shit in the past few years to definitively write off ghosts and demons or what have you. Dutch raised him to believe in nothing—everything could be explained with reason and logic. But then he'd been attacked by nightfolk in the middle of Blue Water Marsh and Dutch was full of shit.

They didn't bother with a fire. Crawdad Willie's was too close to Saint Denise and out here it might as well be an invitation to whatever was slithering out in the swamp. As long as nothing tried to kill 'em or didn't eat the horses, they'd be alright. Charles wasn't doing much better than he had a few days ago at Catfish Jackson's and hadn't even really woken up since the attack. Tomorrow they would ride into Saint Denise for help and any information they could find on Micah.

For now, he needed whatever sleep he could get. The night passed in relative peace and if there were questionable sounds coming from the swamp, Arthur pretended not to hear.

_Saint Denise, September 1907_

Saint Denise was the same shit hole it had been the last time he was here. They entered through the docks to stay as out of sight as possible. Arthur lead Tamia, who bore the full weight of Charles. They probably weren't as inconspicuous as he hoped, with Charles unconscious and strewn across the saddle like a dead man. When they departed Crawdad Willie's that morning, it took both Arthur and Sadie to heft him into the saddle. He unwrapped the dirty shirt binding the wound before they left. What lay underneath was oozing puss and other fluids, as well as a sickening, cloying smell. Charles was hot to the touch. It was apparent that he was dying, either from blood loss or infection, and he needed to see a doctor immediately.

Fortunately, Arthur knew just the one, and he owed Arthur one hell of an apology.

When the door burst open, the receptionist was scared straight out of her chair. Arthur ignored her completely and slammed the door open into the doctor's inner office. The receptionist fluttered in after them, squawking about appointments.

The physician seemed to be expecting someone else altogether, as he'd been interrupted shoving large bundles of money haphazardly into a bag.

"Well hello, doctor. 'Member me?"

He clearly didn't, but wasn't about to admit it out loud.

"What the hell?! You boys are early…" He eyed the bloody path Charles was leaving behind him and trailed off. Arthur sat Charles in the chair and got himself nice and comfy in the doctor's personal space.

"We ain't your boys, Doc. I'll try not to be too hurt you don't recognize my pretty face, 'cause I remember yours. A long time ago I stumbled in here myself, and you sat me in that there chair and told me I was gonna die, and I was gonna die real soon. But you see Doc., that wasn't quite true, was it?" Arthur didn't have the energy to put on an act, so he made his displeasure and the consequences of it clear. "Because here I am. _Not_ dead. I think you owe me one, and I think you're gonna fix my friend here or I'm gonna put a nice hole in that big smart head of yours. What do you say to that?"

The physician said nothing but paled considerably. He dropped the money bag and moved to examine Charles, who had still had not gained consciousness. The doctor poked him first on the chest and then pressed directly on the wound. Charles barley twitched and the doctor made an unpleasant face, either at the smell or the feeling of rot, he wasn't sure.

"Mister, he don't look good. Most don't survive animal attacks this severe, even if they make it to a doctor."

_It wasn't an animal. _"If he don't survive, you ain't."

The doctor ignored his commentary in favor of removing the dirty makeshift bandages. When they came off, a terrible odor filled the room. They both gagged, the doctor backing up a few steps and nabbing a cloth to put over his nose.

"Good lord! What have you done with the man?"

Arthur tried not let that hurt his feelings. He did his best with what little knowledge he had of the matter, but he wasn't a professional and Charles had more than a scratch.

"Just fix him."

_Saint Denise, October 1907_

They spent three weeks in Sainte Denise and the weather was starting to turn. The colder it got, the more restless he became. If he didn't absolutely owe Charles his life, he probably would've made his excuses by now and moseyed on out of town. As it was, he did owe Charles his life. He suspected that debt was repaid now that the severely wounded man was on the mend, but Charles wouldn't be traveling anytime soon. He wasn't dying, but the upper right side of his body was out of commission for the foreseeable future. His arm and shoulder were wrapped in a sling, and fortunately, he could wiggle his fingers, but that was all he could do. Arthur wasn't sure if the arm was broken when the _thing _attacked or if they managed it when fleeing, but he wasn't going to mention it. He hadn't even known it was broken until the doctor brought it up.

With Charles in his sorry state, it would be just he and Sadie on the road. He didn't mind it, but they could use Charles' skill in tracking, and they would have to re-think the plan of attack if they found Micah. He wasn't sure how many he was running with, but the amount of destruction he left behind indicated it was more than a few.

Sadie spent most of the past three weeks in one saloon or another, gathering what information she could on Micah, or as he was now known, Massacre Micah. Journalists weren't the most creative type. It wasn't a complete waste, Sadie got a tip he was heading into the swamp. It wouldn't be Arthur's first choice for a hideout, but he supposed the fog and man-eating animals did a good job of hiding any evidence. It was wet, smothering, and dark. The perfect place to foster the monster Micah was quickly becoming.

He did quite a bit of damage during his brief stint in Sainte Denise. Micah's gang hit some shops in the inner city before anyone knew they were there. The police assumed it was just the usual shoplifters until they found his calling card inside an ammunitions box he'd left behind, conspicuously laying on top of a bright pink candy display. The box was stained and soggy, the cardboard starting to deteriorate. The letters MB were initialed in black ink on the inside of the lid. Under it was a small pink tongue, cleanly detached from its human mouth.

As one might imagine, that greatly concerned the good people of Saint Denise. Micah was swiftly becoming famous for his savagery and the police were starting to put the pieces together, but they weren't quick enough. By the time they found the crime scene, Micah was long gone. He and his crew were like ghosts, their appearance sudden and violent, leaving no trace but their carnage.

Arthur didn't envy the police. They didn't even know where to start looking for the bastard and the crime scene was horrific.

The master of the house, a southern Aristocrat of the noblest birth, was hog-tied and gagged facing the dining area his two young daughters and wife were brutalized in. No one was sure how long they were made to suffer, since the bodies weren't found until the afternoon following the robbery. The investigators were trying to keep the details hush-hush, but the violence was so sensational they couldn't keep a lid on it.

There was evidence to suggest one of the little girls, eleven years old, fought back. She was found completely naked, except for a pair of stockings wrapped around her neck. Her bloody underwear was shoved into her mouth. Her legs were broken in places and yanked out of the hip sockets, a few of her fingernails splintered…and her tongue was cleanly cut out of her small mouth. Micah had always been good with a knife.

Arthur had trouble reckoning this animal with the Micah he knew. Reckless and violent, definitely, but he never suspected this level of brutality lay beneath the surface. He never thought him capable of it, even when Micah was trying to kill him.

He felt bile and guilt rise within him. Maybe if he'd done differently Micah would be dead and that little girl would still be alive. Or Micah would have finished him off up on the mountain.

Sadie received a tip a few days ago that his gang was heading west into the swamp. Arthur didn't need to hear much more than that and felt his stomach sink. He knew exactly where they were going.


End file.
